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The South African crime thriller Reyka is based on the story of a real-life serial killer, Thozamile Taki. The killer was responsible for the deaths of 13 young women in a sugarcane field in South Africa. The series also explores several complexities of the mind, including the Oedipus complex, pedophilia, and Stockholm syndrome. Director Rohan Dickson has explored the complexities of the human mind in the series to ensure that greater depth is added to the narrative. The plot revolves around the life of Reyka, a girl who was abducted at the age of 12, and the way she struggles to battle her inner demons all her life. Will Reyka be able to save her daughter Thuli from the clutches of Speelman? Will the serial killer eventually be found? Let’s find the answers to these questions!

Spoilers Ahead

What Was Reyka’s Relationship With Angus Speelman?

Reyka had been abducted at...

M-Net Greenlights Season Two Of Fremantle Mystery Thriller ‘Reyka’

Iain Glen and Kim Engelbrecht will return for a second season of South Africa’s M-Net crime thriller series Reyka. Production on the Fremantle co-production, from writer Rohan Dickson, will begin early next year ahead of a late 2023 season launch. Season one of the show followed the titular Reyka (Engelbrecht) as a crime profiler hunting an elusive killer in KwaZulu-Natal’s sugarcane fields. Lemohang Tsipa and Samkelo Ndlovu are joining the cast for season two, which centers around couples who are attacked on the docks of Durban. Serena Cullen of Serena Cullen Productions in the UK (Lady Chatterley’s Lover) and Harriet Gavshon produce for Quizzical Pictures, with Serena Cullen, Gavshon Dickson, Nomsa Philiso, Jan du Plessis and Julie Hodge the executive producers.

David Thewlis, Thomas Brodie-Sangster Cast In Disney+’s ‘The Artful Dodger’

Filming is underway on Disney+ Australia’s drama...

South African crime drama “Reyka,” a co-production between global producer-distributor Fremantle and South African broadcaster M-Net, has been greenlit for a second season.

South African-born Kim Engelbrecht and Iain Glen (“Game of Thrones”) will reprise their roles in the series from writer and creator Rohan Dickson, with production set to kick off in January 2023. Season 2 will premiere on M-Net in late 2023.

The first season of the English-language drama follows the crime profiler Reyka Gama (Engelbrecht) who, while haunted by her past, hunts an elusive serial killer in the sugarcane fields of KwaZulu-Natal. Her experience of being abducted as a child by a farmer named Speelman (Glen) has left her traumatized but also helps her enter the minds of Africa’s most notorious criminals.

The second season centers around a series of violent attacks in the port city of Durban and will see Reyka work with a new team to find...

Acquisition

U.K. broadcaster Channel 4 has picked up South African detective drama “The Cane Field Killings” starring Kim Engelbrecht (“Bullet Proof”) and Iain Glen (“Game of Thrones”). The eight-episode series, which launched last year in South Africa, will launch on Channel 4 on Apr. 10. The drama tells the story of a brilliant criminal profiler, Reyka Gama (Engelbrecht), who is struggling to comes to terms with her dark past. Having been abducted as a child by farmer Angus Speelman (Glen), Reyka now channels that traumatic experience to enter into the mindset of Africa’s most notorious criminals. The series follows her investigation into a string of brutal murders committed by a serial killer in the sugar cane fields of Kwa-Zulu-Natal.

The show is produced by Serena Cullen for Serena Cullen Productions and Harriet Gavshon for Quizzical Pictures. “The Cane Field Killings” is a co-production between M-Net and Fremantle and is distributed internationally by Fremantle.

Exclusive: Sarena Khan and Andra Gordon’s Athena Pictures and Starlings Television, led by Chris Philip, have teamed with Propagate Content’s Ben Silverman to co-produce Shadowland, a female-driven wildlife crime thriller series, from Jacqui Barcos, director Darnell Martin and executive producer Peter Elkoff.

Shadowland is based on the real-life experiences of two wildlife crime operatives, both former U.S. special operations counter-terrorism specialists with decades of combined experience working in some of the most dangerous places in the world, now dedicated to uncovering the real drivers behind Africa’s wildlife crime crisis.

After Khan, Gordon and Barcos landed the story rights in a highly competitive bidding process, Barcos and Khan embarked on an undercover trip to South Africa with the operatives to research the project firsthand. In the vein of The Wire, Shadowland delves into both the socio- economic...

Set in the foreboding sugar cane fields of KwaZulu-Natal, Fremantle-M-Net crime thriller “Reyka” – starring South African born Kim Engelbrecht, whose credits include “Isidingo,” “Dominion” and “The Flash,” and Iain Glen, Ser Jorah Mormont in “Games of Thrones” – looks set to mark another milestone in both Fremantle and premium South Africa TV production.

For Fremantle, a still expanding scripted drama force, “Reyka” is its first South African show, after it launched last year its first shows from Israel’s Maria Feldman and Chile’s Fabula.

For M-Net, following on “Trackers,” co-produced with HBO and Zdf, “Reyka” marks an early push into large-scale premium international co-production pairing local and international talent as M-Net parent Multichoice, led by Yolisa Phahle, sees some significant success in facing off with Netflix.

Chosen by Variety as one of the 10 buzziest shows hitting MipTV, typically for a Fremantle drama, “Reyka” tackles big ideas from a...

Production company BlackBox Multimedia has partnered with Italian producers Leader Produzioni and LatAm’s Eo Media Distribution for the TV series adaptation of Luis Sepúlveda’s novel Diary Of A Sentimental Killer. The story follows an unnamed assassin who has been left by his lover the day before he is set to embark on a crucial assignment. Chilean writer Sepúlveda, who died from Covid-19 in April 2020, saw his books sell more than 6 million copies worldwide and be translated into 40 languages.

Kim Engelbrecht and Iain Glen will lead the cast of Reyka, M-Net and Fremantle’s eight-part crime drama that will shoot in South Africa. The show follows a flawed but brilliant criminal profiler who investigates a string of brutal murders committed by a serial killer. The series is created and written by Rohan Dickson and is jointly produced by Serena Cullen for Serena Cullen Productions in the UK and Harriet Gavshon...